Wise Up Wednesday – What Successful People Don’t Do… And What They Do!
Successful People Never Do This
Success comes in all shapes and sizes.
You can be successful in your job, career or business, and you can equally be successful in your marriage, at sports or a hobby.
Whatever success you are after there is one thing all radically successful people have in common: A ferocious drive and hunger for success itself!
Behind many an “overnight success” story is years of hard graft and adversity.
In fact, some of the most successful people in business, entertainment and sport have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have never given up.
Successful people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on trying.
Keep in mind something I learned from a Tony Robbins tape years ago;
“The past does not equal the future!”
So whatever mistakes you may have made or problems you have not overcome yet, find a way to learn from them and carry on. It’s helped me a lot!
Recently, I also came across a collection of examples that should be an inspiration to anyone who aspires to be successful. They show that if you want to succeed you should expect failure along the way.
Henry Ford – the pioneer of modern business entrepreneurs and the founder of the Ford Motor Company failed a number of times on his route to success. His first venture to build a motor car got dissolved a year and a half after it was started because the stockholders lost confidence in Henry Ford.
Despite the fact that the entire motor industry had lost faith in him he managed to find another investor to start the Ford Motor Company – and the rest is history.
Walt Disney – one of the greatest business leaders who created the global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks and consumer products didn’t start off successful.
Before the great success came a number of failures. Believe it or not, Walt was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough!
Richard Branson – is undoubtedly a successful entrepreneur with many successful ventures to his name including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music and Virgin Active.
However, when he was 16 he dropped out of school to start a student magazine that didn’t do as well as he hoped. He then set up a mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own record shop called Virgin.
Along the way to success came many other failed ventures including Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, Virgin cards, etc.
Oprah Winfrey – who apparently ranks No 1 in the Forbes celebrity list, is recognised as the queen of entertainment based on an amazing career as iconic talk show host, media proprietor, actress and producer.
In her earlier career she had numerous set-backs, which included getting fired from her job as a reporter because she was ‘unfit for television’!
J.K. Rowling – wrote the Harry Potter books selling over 400 million copies and making it one of the most successful and lucrative book and film series ever.
However, like so many writers she received endless rejections from publishers. Many rejected her manuscript outright for reasons like ‘it was far too long for a children’s book’ or because ‘children books never make any money’.
When she started she was a divorced single mum on benefits!
So, the one thing successful people never do is: Give up!
Successful People Do Do This
Go With The Flow
Successful people don’t resist change. They go with the flow.
They follow the trends, and embrace them. They are flexible, fluid and nimble. They react to what’s in front of them, and improvise deftly.
Those who are unsuccessful bemoan what is appearing before them, and stay stuck in the past or in what they “expected,” complaining about how life is not what it should be and why what is feels so wrong.
You hear a lot of that in construction right now!
They take professional advice
If a complicated piece of machinery like the engine in your car needs fixing, do you get out the manuals and the tools and set about it yourself? Probably not given the complex mass of pipes and wires crammed under the bonnet of most cars.
The point is that like all things in life, business gets more complicated by the day and it is almost impossible to be an expert in every single field that affects your business.
Unless you are one of the really big players in Specialist Sub-Contracting, it is unlikely that you will have in-house expertise in each of the fields that affect your business.
Successful people know that they need to take take appropriate professional advice at the appropriate time, and not just when they have a problem.
They invest in themselves
A lot of people are incredibly reluctant to invest time, money and energy in themselves and their own growth.
They’ll make any excuse for why now is NOT the time to invest in themselves or commit to change.
Successful people don’t wait – they spend money, time and effort on their own growth because they know without doubt it will pay off – for themselves and everyone around them.
I hope you enjoyed my Wise Up Wednesday blog post and that it gave you some food for thought. As always if I can help in any way please give me a call.
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